Face bevel to reduce tearout on the planer-Does it work?

[Ken Grant]

Have any of you tried having a face bevel ground on your straight knife planer or jointer knives to reduce tearout? If so, was it effective? Did it cause any other problems I should be aware of?

I have an 18 inch planer (Oliver 399). I have been happy with it so far, but i still get some tearout in maple with tricky grain. I am looking for a solution to this problem that does not involve spending $2400 for a byrd head.

I would love to hear from anyone who has tried this what your experience has been. Thanks

[peter gagliardi]

Yes i did, years ago. It does work, but be aware that the face bevel is really only a micro sized bevel of about 5 to maybe 10 degrees tops, and only about .010 down the face- too far down the face leads to less sharpenings, and longer times to do so.
Downfall is, louder, and takes more effort to feed.

[David Kumm]

Does the 399 have a grinder and jointer stone onboard? Dave

[Kevin Jenness]

I had a 10 degree face bevel put on the knives of my Powermatic 160. It has less tearout on funky grained wood than any straight knife planer I have used including Tersa heads. I haven't used a Byrd head planer but once on green wood, but I think mine would come close. As Peter said, it is a bit louder and takes more power. I had mine ground about 1/16" wide which will last through multiple (onboard grinder) sharpenings. I don't understand Peter's comments about longer sharpening times.

[peter gagliardi]

I had a 10 degree face bevel put on the knives of my Powermatic 160. It has less tearout on funky grained wood than any straight knife planer I have used including Tersa heads. I haven't used a Byrd head planer but once on green wood, but I think mine would come close. As Peter said, it is a bit louder and takes more power. I had mine ground about 1/16" wide which will last through multiple (onboard grinder) sharpenings. I don't understand Peter's comments about longer sharpening times.
Kevin,
A quick touch up grind at the sharpener can be just that, quick and usually priced accordingly. If the sharpener needs to grind off fractions of an inch, it takes longer, and they want to charge more.

[Ken Grant]

Does the 399 have a grinder and jointer stone onboard? Dave
Yes i do have a grinder for the machine, as well as a jointing stone. I read all the info i could find over on owwm about grinding and jointing. I have tried grinding then jointing (jointing was kind of a scary experience) and also just grinding. Honestly I am not sure I could tell much of a difference in the cut quality between the two.

I do have a widebelt, so everything goes through that anyway, but I could greatly reduce my widebelt time if I did not have to sand out the occasional tearout. Thanks for the responses so far.

[jack forsberg]

I had a 10 degree face bevel put on the knives of my Powermatic 160. It has less tearout on funky grained wood than any straight knife planer I have used including Tersa heads. I haven't used a Byrd head planer but once on green wood, but I think mine would come close. As Peter said, it is a bit louder and takes more power. I had mine ground about 1/16" wide which will last through multiple (onboard grinder) sharpenings. I don't understand Peter's comments about longer sharpening times.
I think what peters getting at is that when you want to return the knife back to its original rake angle you have to grind more of the knife away . Face angle grind effectively change the rakie angle of the cutter block . The important thing to remember is that if you decrease the rake angle with a face grind of 10° you need to add 10°Of grind to the back angle to reduce Feed pressure . Grinding information is in many of my wadkin manuals. Face grind would only be used in dry hardwood

[Rick Johnston]

Probably not a solution for any quantity of work - but for casual woodworker misting with water helps. ( a poster on this site mentioned that in the past. I've found it helps.

[Kevin Jenness]

Jack, I see the point about returning to the original rake angle. I think if I were facing a big run of softwood I might install another set of knives rather than regrind. Wet wood really isn't a consideration for me. With the onboard grinder changing the primary bevel is not an option. I have not noticed a major change in feed resistance. It would probably be more noticeable on a jointer. When the face bevel is ground away I may try a 5 degree face bevel as a compromise. I would have to check, but I think the rake angle with no bevel in my machine is about 25 degrees, so my effective cutting angle with the face bevel would be 15 degrees.

Ken, there seem to be different practices regarding jointing and grinding in place. The Powermatic instructions call for jointing first and then grinding not quite to the jointed edge, thus leaving a small land (less than .01") at the tip. I have been following this procedure with good results. Grinding out to the tip is supposed to leave a wire edge, which is said to be liable to fracture and raggedness. I suppose one could hone away the wire edge.

At my last job we ran a SCMI with an onboard grinder but no jointer. It seemed to work fine wire edge and all. It took a number of grinding sessions before the knives all were ground into the same cutting circle, as the initial knife setting done without jack screws was a bit inexact. Jointing is a bit scary at first, but after a couple of times is routine and I am convinced that having all the knives at the same height is worth the effort. I may try just grinding next time as an experiment.

[lowell holmes]

[QUOTE=Kevin Jenness;2542988]Jack, I see the point about returning to the original rake angle. I think if I were facing a big run of softwood I might install another set of knives rather than regrind. Wet wood really isn't a consideration for me. With the onboard grinder changing the primary bevel is not an option. I have not noticed a major change in feed . . . . . .......

You might want to explore a Deulen Jig. With it, sandpaper on plate glass or granite plate will take care of the edges on jointer knives. The cost of the jig is about equal to one paid for sharpening.

I'm not sure what you are referring to with rake angle on a jointer or planer knife. Is it the primary bevel on the knife? There is a secondary bevel left with the jig.

[jack forsberg]

[QUOTE=Kevin Jenness;2542988]Jack, I see the point about returning to the original rake angle. I think if I were facing a big run of softwood I might install another set of knives rather than regrind. Wet wood really isn't a consideration for me. With the onboard grinder changing the primary bevel is not an option. I have not noticed a major change in feed . . . . . .......

You might want to explore a Deulen Jig. With it, sandpaper on plate glass or granite plate will take care of the edges on jointer knives. The cost of the jig is about equal to one paid for sharpening.

I'm not sure what you are referring to with rake angle on a jointer or planer knife. Is it the primary bevel on the knife? There is a secondary bevel left with the jig.
The rake angle is the angle to which the face of the knife presents itself to the wood . A simple way to understand it is look at it like the angle to which an iron is held in the hand plan . there are low angle planes and high angle planes and the angle at which the iron is set is the rake angle when we're talking about cutter blocks. Keven I don't really like the grinders unless you have quickset pressure bars and rollers I do like the jointing stone . Grinders won't work on my Wadkin head because the knife is skewed in the cutter block. What's great about this patented head from the 20s is that it is both a hardwood and softwood raking all in one . On the far side motor drive it's a softwood angle and on the operator side it's a hardwood angle because the knife comes out of the block a different projections from centre absolutely fabulous . So I just run it at the appropriate spot on the 26 inch wide jointer. For sharpening I have a bursgress grinder that sits on the head and is handheld and will grind the skewed knife on the old English type skewed knife cutter block . These are still straight knife cutter blocks it's just that the knife biases the cylinder it's just that the knife biases the cylinder askew it's central axis

[Kevin Jenness]

Jack, that sounds like a very sweet setup. As a mere mortal I have to make do with one rake angle in the jointer. I haven't tried a face bevel there as most surfaces are recut with the planer and I have the slider for edging gnarly stuff. My jointer is a pain to set the knives so I have switched to carbide tipped to lengthen the sharpening intervals.

[Warren Lake]

run a piece of green 3M autobody masking tape across your head from side to side near your knife. Run a line of black magic marker on the tip of your knife. Take a fine diamond hone and put some oil on the whole hone, Run the hone across the knife tip resting on the head on the line of tape and knife tip, dont push hard at all. just go back and forth several times on an area then work across the same way. As the marker comes off you see how much of a bevel you have made. You will have no issues with the heal of the new bevel hitting since it was resting on the left side on the head right side on the tip of the knife. Now you have a freshly sharpened knife only with a bevel and it will cut like a wedge and cut figured wood cleaner than a brand new honed dangerously sharp knives, you know when you hone your high speed knives after they come back from a good sharpening service and putting them in accidentally slice yourself, they are sharper than a razor and blood starters dripping right away?

[jack forsberg]

run a piece of green 3M autobody masking tape across your head from side to side near your knife. Run a line of black magic marker on the tip of your knife. Take a fine diamond hone and put some oil on the whole hone, Run the hone across the knife tip resting on the head on the line of tape and knife tip, dont push hard at all. just go back and forth several times on an area then work across the same way. As the marker comes off you see how much of a bevel you have made. You will have no issues with the heal of the new bevel hitting since it was resting on the left side on the head right side on the tip of the knife. Now you have a freshly sharpened knife only with a bevel and it will cut like a wedge and cut figured wood cleaner than a brand new honed dangerously sharp knives, you know when you hone your high speed knives after they come back from a good sharpening service and putting them in accidentally slice yourself, they are sharper than a razor and blood starters dripping right away?
warren they all like a screwdriver to change the knifes this is way to olds school for them. they want pop on/in cutters not to spend time on machines and real wood working shaping knifes is not about wood work to them its about machines there into working with the wood and machines and technique can't hold a handle to customer service.

[Warren Lake]

one thing came to mind after posting was last time running birdseye you have control of your feed rate on the jointer. On the planer it runs too fast for my liking, it worked fine still I knew slowing it down like I can on the little woodmaster moulder it has a vari speed gear motor works better. i took the trans cover off the SCM to look at the gears and chains and thought one day im going to figure out a gear motor on it so the times I want to slow it down I can dial it in.

Ken OP im just mentioning that as well as a second thought that would help you, slowing your feed on difficult figure if you can is also a big help.

[jack forsberg]

one thing came to mind after posting was last time running birdseye you have control of your feed rate on the jointer. On the planer it runs too fast for my liking, it worked fine still I knew slowing it down like I can on the little woodmaster moulder it has a vari speed gear motor works better. i took the trans cover off the SCM to look at the gears and chains and thought one day im going to figure out a gear motor on it so the times I want to slow it down I can dial it in.

Ken OP im just mentioning that as well as a second thought that would help you, slowing your feed on difficult figure if you can is also a big help.

Warren if your jointers are a little larger you can skew the work too and this is just the same as you would with hand plans on difficult grain. Here i mill some quilted oak


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coz5wpIHchk

[Ken Grant]

one thing came to mind after posting was last time running birdseye you have control of your feed rate on the jointer. On the planer it runs too fast for my liking, it worked fine still I knew slowing it down like I can on the little woodmaster moulder it has a vari speed gear motor works better. i took the trans cover off the SCM to look at the gears and chains and thought one day im going to figure out a gear motor on it so the times I want to slow it down I can dial it in.

Ken OP im just mentioning that as well as a second thought that would help you, slowing your feed on difficult figure if you can is also a big help.
Yeah I definitely agree with this, and usually run the planer on the slowest speed for the final pass. However, that is still much faster then the hand feed rate shown in the video above.